Following their departure from the Savage Land, the X-Men find themselves caught in the middle of a terrible storm at sea. While Storm attempts to control the raging weather with her mutant powers, the team are found and rescued by Jinguchi Maru, a Japanese ship out on a government mission. The captain of the ship welcomes the X-Men aboard, but tells the group that they are unauthorized to make radio contact until the ship returns to Japan.

While at the X-Mansion, Jean Grey decides to leave the mansion for a vacation finding that the old house carried too many memories of the friends she believes to be dead. As she departs, Lilandra considers how someone so young can go through so much grief. She then goes to check on Charles, who is still reeling over the supposed death of his students. When she gets him to talk about things, he tells her how he keeps on thinking of the beginning when he decided to dedicate his life to peace between humans and mutants.

It all began years ago when he and Moira Kinross were in love, when he was drafted into the military she would promise to wait for him. He would be injured in combat, and learn while recovering the hospital that Moira would go on to marry another. Upon his release from the hospital, Charles would spend his time wandering the globe until he found his way to Cairo, Egypt. One day he would be robbed by a young female pickpocket -- a girl that Charles would now recognize as his future student, Ororo Munroe -- and chase after her, he would easily stop her with his mental powers. He would end up being struck by a mental attack in the process of recovering his wallet.

Reeling from the attack, Xavier would track it to a cafe where he would meet a fat telepath calling himself Amahl Farouk. Recognizing the man as evil, Charles would engage him in psychic combat. As the two would combat each other in the astral plane, Farouk would initially have the advantage in battle until Xavier would focus his entire psychic might in one final attack that would defeat Farkou, seekingly killing him. Xavier would finish his recollection by telling Lilandra that after that battle he became devoted to fighting evil mutants and shortly thereafter was crippled by the alien named Lucifer[1].

Now with the X-Men seemingly dead, Xavier would not know what to do next, and Lilandra would convince him to join her when she would returns to the Shi'ar empire, Xavier decides to follow her. While at JFK Airport, Jean Grey runs into her roommate Misty Knight, where the two tell each other of their plans: Jean plans on taking a vacation, while Misty and her colleague Colleen Wing are heading off to Japan on one of their missions. With Misty's flight leaving soon, Jean bids her farewell completely unaware that Misty is heading to where the other X-Men -- who are very much alive -- are also heading.

Notes

This issue is reprinted in many other comics and books, see references for more info.[2]

Trivia

Misty Knight refers to Phoenix as an "erstwhile roommate" in this issue. This would mean that they are no longer roommates though their separation was never seen.